ROXBURGHSHIRE

"ROXBURGHSHIRE is of an irregular figure, the greatest extent of which,
in every direction, is about 30 miles. It is bounded on the N. by
Berwickshire; on the E. and S. by the English border; and on the W. by
Dumfries and
Selkirkshires. It comprehends the ancient districts of
Teviotdale and Liddisdale; so named from the rivers Teviot and Liddal,
which run through them. The N. and W. divisions of the county are
mountainous; but the E. and S. are upon the whole flat and fertile.
The whole abounds with the most romantic scenery; exhibiting in every
part the rough appearance of hills, mosses, and mountains, interspersed,
however, with narrow vallies, in which run numerous streams, long since
familiar from poetical description ... Roxburghshire is divided into 31
parochial districts, which, by the returns made in 1801, contained 33,712
inhabitants."
from Gazetteer of Scotland published 1806, Edinburgh.

Note: Roxburghshire became part of the new Borders region in 1975,
which in turn became the Scottish Borders council in 1996. However
historical records used by genealogists and family historians are, in
the main, structured around the older counties, like Roxburghshire.

A list of ancient parishes is also available, mapping ancient names to more modern parishes which replaced them.
There is also a (large) county map showing the relative positions of the parishes. Note: the parishes listed here are generally those in existence before 1855 when civil registration started, indeed many of the civil registration districts were based on the older parishes. Since
1855 new parishes may have appeared and old parishes joined together. This list should not be viewed as a comprehensive list of parishes in the county throughout time. Instead it is a means of further dividing the county up geographically, taking a snapshot of the situation at a particular time (1855).

The Borders Book
edited by Donald Omand
Published 1995 by Birlinn Ltd., Edinburgh
ISBN 1 874744 50 5 [hardback]
ISBN 1 874744 73 4 [paperback]
Note: this contains essays on a wide variety of topics making it
fascinating reading for all with an interest in the Borders.

List of books relating to, or published in, the counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles
James Sinton
Published Edinburgh, 1899

Chapter 10 entitled "Abbeys and Churches" of The Borders Book
(see the Bibliography section) is devoted to this subject,
starting from the ancient monastic communities in the Borders through
to the present day.

Christian Heritage in the Borders examines the history of the Christian church in the Scottish Borders. It is a companion to Early Settlers in the Borders (see under the History section) and was published by the Scottish Borders Council in 1998. Its ISBN
is 0953043819.

The churches and churchyards of Teviotdale by James Robson was published at Hawick in 1893.

For information on registers (baptisms, marriages and burials) for
a particular parish, please see that parish's page. General advice on parish
registers throughout Scotland can be found under Church Records on the main
Scotland page in GENUKI.

The website of the
National Records of Scotland includes a leaflet on irregular marriages and information on the known surviving registers. Irregular marriages occurred along the Border
and were a form of marriage by consent, convenient both for English runaway couples and Scottish Borderers who did not want to marry in their own churches. The Church of Scotland disapproved of such marriages and would often catch up with a couple, perhaps when their first child was born or baptized.
So kirk session minutes can be another useful source for tracing irregular marriages.

Graham and Emma Maxwell are transcribing and indexing baptisms, marriages and burials recorded in Scottish Borders kirk session records and non-conformist church records. Their website also offers a free search facility for these resources.

The kirk session of a parish consists of the minister of the parish
and the elders of the congregation. It looks after the general wellbeing
of the congregation and, particularly in centuries past, parochial discipline.
Most kirk session records are held in the
National Records of Scotland
in Edinburgh and can be fascinating reading.
For more information see Anne Gordon's
Candie for the Foundling published by the Pentland
Press in 1992. ISBN 1 872795 75 7 (720 pages).

For an account of the Border kirk session records, focusing particularly
on poor relief and the dispensation of discipline, see M.C. Lawson's
article "The Poor, Crime and Punishment, and the Power of the Kirk in
the Borders, 17th & 18th Centuries" which was published on pages 14-15
of the June 1996
Borders Family History Society magazine.

Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths began in Scotland on
1st January 1855. For further details of this see the National Records of Scotland website.

ScotlandsPeople is the official government website providing access to indexes of Scottish birth, marriage and death certificates, linked online images of the certificates, census return indexes and linked images, and parish register indexes.

Ian Millar's website has a large collection of photographs of the Scottish Borders in the past.

The St Cuthbert's Way website describes the long distance walking route which runs between Melrose and Lindisfarne, commemorating the life of St Cuthbert. On the way the walk passes by St Boswells, Ancrum Moor, Jedburgh, Morebattle and Yetholm.

A classic guide to the area is Andrew and John Lang's
Highways and Byways in The Border, first
published in 1913 and reprinted in later years. Most recently it was
reissued in the United Kingdom by Senate in 1999, under the title
Scottish Border Country, ISBN 1859585434 (439 pages).
The book takes the form of a journey through the Border country and is
full of local and historical snippets of information, as well as many
pencil sketches of local places.

A more recent book which may be of interest is Charles Alexander
Strang's Borders and Berwick: an illustrated architectural
guide to the Scottish Borders and Tweed Valley. As the title
suggests, it concentrates on the architecture of the area. However
it is well illustrated with hundreds of photographs and contains
short descriptions and historical notes on many places.
It was first published in 1994 by the Rutland Press and its ISBN is
1873190107 (272-page paperback edition).

Chapter 9 of The Borders Book (see the
Bibliography section) has a lot
of information on the history of roads, bridges and railways
in the Borders. More is given in Chapter 14, pp 171-176 as
part of the chapter on the Industrial Revolution.

Barbara Turner has compiled a
list of people
who gave one of the Scottish Border counties as their place of birth, and married in the state of Victoria in Australia, between the years 1853 and 1895. This list was also published in past issues of the Borders FHS magazine.

Ancient Stones is an illustrated guide to the stones and circles of south-east Scotland, including the Scottish Borders.

In Tales of the Borders Michael Brander presents a number of tales from John Mackay Wilson's collection of the same name which was first published in the first half of the nineteenth century. This more recent collection includes 12 tales spanning the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries,
together with historical notes and background information on the places described. It was published by Mainstream Publishing in 1991 (ISBN 1 85158 395 5).

Haunted Borders by Norrie McLeish is a collection of Border stories of the supernatural, placed in an historical and geographical context. It was published by Alba Publishing in 1997 (ISBN 1873708084).

Both Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and James Hogg (1770-1835) (the
"Ettrick Shepherd") were fascinated by the folklore and history of
their native Border country, and used it considerably throughout
their works. Their contribution is discussed in two chapters of
The Borders Book (see Bibliography section).

A number of articles related to this subject have appeared in
past transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society including:

Michael Robson's Surnames and Clansmen: Border family history in earlier days is a study of Border family life over three hundred years ago, based on extensive original research. The book includes an index of surnames mentioned (nearly 400) and focuses in detail on three of them for illustrative
purposes (Chisholm, Mader/Mather, and Yarrow). The book was published by the author in 1998, has 200 pages, and its ISBN is 0953401502.

Alistair Moffat's The Borders: A history of the Borders from earliest times was published in Selkirk in 2002 by Deerpark Press, 464 pages in hardback. The book accompanies a UK television series of the same name.

Alexander Jeffrey, a solicitor in Jedburgh, wrote a history of the county which
was published in two separate editions. An historical and descriptive
account of Roxburghshire, from the most ancient to the present times (424
pages long) was published in Edinburgh by Fraser & Co. in 1836. His later 2-volume
The history and antiquities in Roxburghshire and adjacent districts:
from the most remote period to the present time was published between
1855 and 1864 by T.C. Jack. The 1864 edition is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

The Borders Book (see the Bibliography section)
contains much information on Border history.

Early Settlers in the Borders looks at the early settlers of the Borders, from prehistoric times, through Roman Britain, and up to the early Christian kingdoms in southern Scotland. It is a companion to Christian Heritage in the Borders (see under the Church
History section) and was published by the Scottish Borders Council in 1997. Its ISBN is 0953043800.

The border counties were for many centuries the battleground between
Scotland and England. Largely as a result of this the reiving tradition
arose, something which only really died out with the Union of the Crowns
in 1603. For a comprehensive history of the reiving times, read George
MacDonald Fraser's The Steel Bonnets: the story of the Anglo-Scottish
Border Reivers, first published in 1971 and reprinted ever since.

Allan Wilson's Roman and Native in the Central Scottish Borders (British Archaeological Reports British Series 519, 2010) examines interactions between Romans and native society in Roxburghshire, Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire. It includes an inventory of Roman-era archaeological finds in this part of the Borders, as well as plans and sketches of archaeological sites and finds. Its ISBN is 9781407307220. The book was sponsored by The Trimontium Trust.

(Inheritance Records - see Land and Property)

(Kirk Session Records - see Church Records)

Records of services of heirs were kept for Roxburghshire, much like other
counties. The full records are kept at the
National Records of Scotland
in Edinburgh but a number have also been published by the Scottish Record Society.
Entitled Services of heirs, Roxburghshire, 1636-1847, they were published in 1934. It is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

The Roxburghshire word-book: being a record of the special vernacular vocabulary of the county of Roxburgh, with an appendix of specimens by George Watson was published in 1923 by Cambridge University Press. It is listed in the LDS Family History Library
catalogue in microfilm, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

The Borders Book (see Bibliography section)
has an entire chapter all about the Borders dialect.

For another source of reference, a number of articles on the local dialect,
especially around the Hawick area, have been published in past transactions
of the Hawick Archaeological Society:

"The Dialect of Upper Teviotdale" by George Watson, 1915 transactions, pages 8-18

"Gipsy loan-words in the Roxburghshire vernacular" by George Watson, 1919 transactions, pages 8-11

A transcript of the Protocol book of Sir William Corbet 1529-1555 edited by Rev. John Anderson and William Angus was published by the Scottish Record Society in 1911. According to the preface to the book, the legal transactions recorded "deal almost entirely with subjects in the counties
of Roxburgh and Berwick, chiefly in the parishes of Linton and Merton". This is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

The Roxburghshire Lieutenancy Book records parish-by-parish the names of men ballotted to serve in the militia between 1797 and 1802. The original manuscript volume is held in the Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre (see the Archives section of this page). The book has been digitised and put online in the SCAN website (Scottish Archive Network).

Roxburghshire surname interests are now included in the Online Scottish Names Research Directory. If you are researching
any surnames in Roxburghshire, please consider submitting details to this website.

Michael Robson's book Surnames and Clansmen (see the Genealogy section)
gives an insight into Border family life over three hundred years ago
and mentions nearly 400 surnames.

Information about newspapers covering the county in the past is available.

Tweeddale Press publish a number of Border newspapers. Their website includes some of the published stories.

Indexes of death notices in 1854 and 1853 in the Kelso Chronicle have been published. These list many deaths throughout the Scottish Borders as well as deaths on the other side of the Border (including Berwick-on-Tweed) and deaths of Borderers overseas.

Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914 edited by T.M. Devine (published in 1984 by John Donald Publishers Ltd of Edinburgh) includes a chapter by Michael Robson entitled "The Border Farm Worker". This appears on pages 71-96 of the book.

A short article on "The Weavers of the Borderland" appeared in the 1935 Hawick Archaeological Society Transactions, on page 15. Beginning "There is scarcely a trace of the old handloom weavers that were prominent in every Border district before the advent of the modern loom swept them aside" the article
continues to briefly mention weavers in Selkirk, Kelso, Darnick, and Coldingham.

The commissariot record of Peebles: register of testaments, 1681-1699 edited by Sir Francis J. Grant was published in 1902
in Edinburgh by the Scottish Record Society. It is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

Index to the inventories of the personal estates of defuncts: recorded in the Commissary Court books of Ayr, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Dumfries, Roxburgh, Berwick, Peebles, and Selkirk was published by HMSO in Edinburgh in 1868, and indexes inventories of personal estates of deceased people
in these counties between 1846 and 1867. It is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format, so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres.

Note that testamentary records - where they survive - for this county
are generally held in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. The National Archives has unpublished testamentary indexes for some other periods, but many surviving records are unindexed. Please note there is a significant gap in the surviving testaments for this county between 1699 and 1785.

Chapter 9 of The Borders Book (see the Bibliography section)
contains a section concentrating on the social life and welfare in the area,
including population numbers, pay and conditions, housing, health and education etc. See also
the Statistics section below.

An article on "Border life 140 years ago" (circa 1800) appeared in the 1936
transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society, pages 5-12. Written by James Edgar,
it is largely based upon the Statistical Account of the 1790s.

The 1932 transactions of Hawick Archaeological Society contained an article
on "Border rural life in the olden time", pages 13-16. Written by Walter
Barrie, this concentrates on the first half of the century, going back to
his childhood and also covering life for the previous generation.

For a glimpse of Roxburghshire life a very long time ago, see A. Campbell-Fraser's
article "Glimpses of Teviotdale in the twelfth century from the Latin of
Reginald of Durham" which appeared in the 1924 transactions of the Hawick
Archaeological Society, on pages 24-28.

For a social and economic record of the parishes of Roxburghshire,
together with masses of statistical material, see Sir John Sinclair's
Statistical Account of Scotland which was compiled in the 1790s.
Volume III deals with the Eastern Borders, including Roxburghshire. The
account was reprinted in facsimile form in 1979 by EP Publishing Limited
of Wakefield, England.

Follow-up works to this were the New Statistical Account (also known
as the Second Statistical Account) which was prepared in the 1830s
and 1840s; and more recently the Third Statistical Account which has
been prepared since the Second World War. The Third Statistical
Account: The County of Roxburgh was published in 1992 by Scottish Academic Press, ISBN 0707307201.

The New Statistical Account for this area
is listed in the LDS Family History Library catalogue in microfilm format (under Scotland/Roxburgh/History), so is hopefully available worldwide in LDS family history centres (note that one microfilm version of it is misnamed in the LDS catalogue as "The New statistical
account of Scotland: vol. III: Boxburg - Peebles - Selkirk").